Dexter Morgan

Dexter

Tonight’s the night
Where everything will finally be put back in place.
In these last moments, everything is finally right

You lie there as still as this site,
There is no more, I won the chase.
Tonight’s the night

When they catch me, I wonder what they will write.
“How could he do it? What a disgrace!”
In these last moments, everything is finally right

The feeling is now gone, no more delight.
You give me nothing now, you will soon have no trace.
Tonight’s the night

What went wrong? I’m almost contrite.
That temporary reprieve was one of the few breaks in the race.
In these last moments, everything is finally right

I clean up the mess you made and wait for what the night may invite.
You are now one of many, a blank face to erase.
Tonight was the night.
And in those last few moments, I saw my soul ignite.

I choose the villanelle for my formal poem because I enjoy the idea of repetition in poems and how they can affect the reader after they are finally done. The ending change of both refrains also allowed for me to show some sort of internal change from the image I tried to portray in the poem and I really enjoyed that. My poem is based off of the TV show Dexter and I thought this type of juxtaposition between the story of a serial killer and this strict, formalistic poem would be unique. I did not vary much from the rules of the poem just because I felt that if I did too much it would be so derivative of the structural meaning and I wanted some kind of practice at adhering to rules of poetry in preparation for the one formalistic poem we have the write for the next project. Overall, I really enjoyed writing about such a structured process, that of killing for Dexter, in a poem that also has a “code”. I didn’t really mention killing or how he kills openly because I felt that it would take away from the poem, as the show does the same with its lack of graphic content for being a show about a serial killer. I really enjoyed writing a villanelle and I plan on using one for my next project now.

David Gessner Reading Review

After listening to him speak for the better part of an hour, there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty about David Gessner: He knows how to entertain. Compared to Tayari Jones, Gessner presented himself as someone who you would want to talk to regardless of his work as an author. Even though the topic of Gessner's work, My Green Manifesto and The Tarball Chronciles, were not topics that I usually find entertaining, he was able to captivate my attention from the moment he started speaking. The opening video he showed from his “trailer” for My Green Manifesto also helped set the stage for the night. After looking around on YouTube for that video, I was able to find more proof (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuNjEs8mdrA) that Mr. Gessner is a story teller and a great one at that.

Throughout the evening, Gessner made by great points through his story-telling, but the one which I found the most fascinating was that of the “hypocritical environmentalist”. Gessner clearly understood that in order for changes to be made to better the environment, we must also change how we think about environmentalist. Usually telling someone to be a hypocrite would be a terrible idea, but considering the shape of things right now, any kind of forward progress is worthwhile. I also enjoyed how Gessner poked fun at the many environmentalists that drearily state we have ruined everything and the world is going to end soon.

Overall, I had a great time at the reading and I wish more authors would take a page from Gessner and entertain the audience instead of just trying to push their next book. The way in which Gessner read the book helped the audience better understand how passionate he is about the area, but at the same time he understands that it is not the top problem on everyone’s list. I enjoyed the stories that Gessner told and because of that I was also able to understand and appreciate the meaning behind each one.

Reply to Pope Alexander

I could never really stand poetry for most of my life. I always just saw it as another type of busy work that teachers could give us in class. It was not until I watched the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", the 2004 romantic sci-fi, that I learned that poetry has its charm. The title of the movie came from a poem that Alexander Pope had written about an illicit love affair and how forgetfulness provides the only escape to the two tormented lovers. The poem is rather lengthy so I am only including the lines that inspire me the most here.


Alexander Pope-"Eloisa to Abelard" 1717

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

My response:

My thoughts as encompassing as time
Endless possibilities in life
But I always come back to you, mine.
Everyday, we put ourselves through this strife
I wish I could forget you, my future wife.

Life without you would save me for this eternal pain,
No more would I lay awake at night wondering about
you, the future and if they are at all the same
But without you, I would have no joy. I doubt
I could ever forget you. I have accepted the rules.
I will play this game.

Copy of a Copy of a Copy

I knew you had to die
but I couldn't stop it
everything had to happen
just like it did.
This is my destiny.

One day you
will see that I,
I did it all for you.
I never meant
to hurt you like this.
This is my destiny.

I'd start the cycle again,
but it never stopped.
I know this is the right choice
since I've already made it before.
This is our destiny.

Dialogue "Changes"

Original:

The goal had ended my penalty early and I rushed out to console my team the best I could. I went over to the team captain, Bobby.

“Sorry guys, that one is on me. I didn’t know I couldn’t do that.”

“Well know you do know, and don’t fucking do it again.”

“Bobby, you can’t talk like that. You’re going to be father soon.”

Bobby dropped his stick and his usual long, clumsy strides finally had some sense of purpose to them as he headed over towards me. I quickly made my way behind our fill-in goalie for the night, Kai, and used him as a human shield from Bobby. Considering his performance tonight, I should have expected him to fail to block Bobby’s swing as his fist connected with my chest, right on our stupid logo.

“I’m not the father. Stop spreading that fucking rumor and start playing some defense.”

I decided to not remind Bobby that his name was in fact on the birth certificate of his bastard son and made my way over to my fellow defensemen. Cory had been my best friend since the second grade and was responsible for introducing me to most of my hobbies in life, and hockey was not an exception. He stood on the blue line as the puck was about to be dropped and quickly fixed his dyed blonde hair away from his eyes and the sweat that it contained flew off to the side.

“How many blocks are you on now?”

The face-off went to the Dragons.

“I wanna say…17. Good luck catching me now.”

Taking out all the quotation marks:

The goal had ended my penalty early and I rushed out to console my team the best I could. I went over to the team captain, Bobby.

Sorry guys, that one is on me. I didn’t know I couldn’t do that.

Well know you do know, and don’t fucking do it again.

Bobby, you can’t talk like that. You’re going to be father soon.

Bobby dropped his stick and his usual long, clumsy strides finally had some sense of purpose to them as he headed over towards me. I quickly made my way behind our fill-in goalie for the night, Kai, and used him as a human shield from Bobby. Considering his performance tonight, I should have expected him to fail to block Bobby’s swing as his fist connected with my chest, right on our stupid logo.

I’m not the father. Stop spreading that fucking rumor and start playing some defense.

I decided to not remind Bobby that his name was in fact on the birth certificate of his bastard son and made my way over to my fellow defensemen. Cory had been my best friend since the second grade and was responsible for introducing me to most of my hobbies in life, and hockey was not an exception. He stood on the blue line as the puck was about to be dropped and quickly fixed his dyed blonde hair away from his eyes and the sweat that it contained flew off to the side.

How many blocks are you on now?

The face-off went to the Dragons.

I wanna say…17. Good luck catching me now.

I tried taking out the quotation marks since I had read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and enjoyed this unique writing style. While this type of dialogue works great for his books, I think it fails completely with my paper. I tried to use this technique on the most dialogue-dense section of my paper. The lack of quotation marks gives a high degree of importance to everyword that is said, but for my hopefully humorous paper the styles completely clash. For me, the lack of quotation marks cause me to read each line of dialogue more for what is being said rather than how it is being said. For comedy, delivery is a key element so this is why I feel these two styles do not work at all. My perceptions on how this technique add to a story may be skewed though because I only have seen it once it a book that was very somber.